Christer Petley, Professor of History, is using the past to inform the future, analysing the letters of a prominent slaveholder from the late eighteenth century to shed new light on the greed, cruelty, fear and fury during the years of the slave trade.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Christer’s work includes cross-disciplinary collaboration as well as close exploration of text; he has worked with performance artists Elaine Mitchener on the production of a music theatre piece, Sweet Tooth.
Christer said:
“I am convinced that trying to understand greed, cruelty, fear, and fury in the past can help us to understand the survival, or re-emergence, of those forces in the present. Despite all the challenges we now face, I hope such knowledge can help us create a brighter future.”
This story is one of many on our University’s Research Highlights articles, all of which demonstrate how the work that goes on right here at Southampton is impacting and improving the world around us.
Read the full article here to find out more about Christer’s research.
